Oleh Minko is a Ukrainian nonconformist artist representing "hermetic" art. He created images with a double meaning, where he narrated the theme of the work through the symbols of objects and human gestures. The style of his paintings is influenced by ancient Ukrainian iconography and European modernists: Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and Giorgio de Chirico. Oleg Minko's works are kept in state museums of national importance in Ukraine and private collections in Ukraine and abroad. The artist had personal exhibitions in London, Helsinki, Brussels, Copenhagen, Washington, and Vilnius.
In his piece "Centaurs in the Steppe," Oleh Minko relies on visual forms of folk art, the semantics of the nature of the steppe of the Donetsk region as a place of primordial clashes and struggle. The artist divides the composition into three parts. The lower one, dotted with various plants and animals, is the world of the living. The upper part is the world of the gods, where centaurs fight to find reconciliation between good and evil. Interestingly, the artist also finds a place for himself among them, depicting a small, barely noticeable hut in the center and a self-portrait in the upper right corner. The critical role is played by a large black shadow representing the human soul, with a goat next to it — a guide between worlds.
